Eleanor Douglas

Eleanor Maud May Douglas, RCA, OSA (Canadian-American,
1872-1914) artist, author, Roycroft artisan & potter, canoeist,
horsewoman, pianist and violinist, primarily known for her oil paintings
of trees, woodland interiors and landscapes. Eleanor studied at the
Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in Ontario, Canada. She has been
described as “America’s foremost woman landscape painter” in the early
part of the 20th century and was also known as “the painter of trees”.

Eleanor was born May 24th, 1872 on a farm in Port Elgin, Bruce
County, Ontario, Canada to William Douglass and “Polly” Marian (née
Gaukel), and was the fourth child in a family of ten children. Growing
up, Eleanor lived on the Ojibway Indian Saugeen Reservation (later known
as the Chippewa), located along the Saugeen River and Bruce Peninsula,
near Southampton, Ontario, Canada, about 150 miles northwest of Toronto.
As a young girl she lived with her grandfather who maintained a small
store and post office on the reservation. She knew the Ojibway and their
customs quite intimately, and learned many of the Indian practices such
as canoeing, riding, making moccasins, stringing snowshoes and using
bark for various items. She also learned to speak some of the Indian
language of Anishinabe and received her Indian name “Phpence” (which
translates to “Laughing Girl”).

Eleanor lived with her second
cousin and artist Carl Ahrens (Canadian 1862-1936) among the Ojibway
tribe until 1900 when they moved to East Aurora, NY to join Elbert
Hubbard’s community of craftsmen. They developed the Roycroft Pottery
program using red terra cotta clay, using input from artist and sculptor
Jerome Conner (Irish American 1874-1943). A sample promotion for the
venture was in a Roycroft Art & Handicraft advertisement circa the fall
of 1900: “Perhaps you would like to see what the Roycrofters are trying
to do in POTTERY. The Potter Shop is just across the Road from the
Printery. Miss Douglass will be glad to show her wares.” Included in a
1902 exhibition of Eleanor’s paintings were a few pieces of the Roycroft
pottery she had produced. The venture was short lived however, as pieces
were sold unglazed for quick marketing. Apparently none of the
approximately 100 pieces have survived.

I

Eleanor's little School House Studio at 48 Douglas Lane as
it looks fully restored (as of 08/2013). It was once a
contemporary gift gallery called the West End Gallery and is now
the site of East Aurora Physical Therapy, who is part of the
Buffalo Rehab Group.(Photo by Mark Strong)

n the late 1890’s,
Eleanor saw an abandoned schoolhouse near the Roycroft Campus in Willink,
NY (now known as East Aurora). Originally built in 1800, it had served
as the local schoolhouse from 1857-1889. She purchased the building at
61 Hamburg Street naming it the School House Studio. Eleanor created a
home and gardens, welcoming friends and patrons into her vine covered
studio with an open door policy. Outside she tended sunflowers,
hollyhocks, honeysuckle and meadow rue. Inside her studio guest book
included many signatures of notable people who enjoyed the hospitality
of her warm cobblestone fireplace and the music of her piano or violin.
From 1989-2014, it operated as an art gallery called the West End
Gallery, owned by the Roycroft Renaissance artist Michele Conley Vogel
who along with her husband had fully restored the old studio at 48
Douglas Lane. In, 1990 they received the Preservation Award for their
restoration of the building, from the Erie County Preservation Board and
Erie County Department of Environmental and Planning, D’Youville
College, Buffalo, NY.The studio is now the site of East Aurora Physical
Therapy, who is part of the Buffalo Rehab Group.

Eleanor was a
“Lover of the Woods” and spent each day hiking through the forests and
fields around Willink and East Aurora sketching, painting or canoeing.
Abundant subject matter was found close to her door or on early morning
adventures which might range thirty miles, with painting equipment
strapped to her bicycle. The moniker “Lady of the Forest” was earned
camping in the woods for days at a time in a tent or shack. A favorite
spot was the ‘Ole Swimmin Hole’ along the banks of Cazenovia Creek, also
frequented by famous artist Alexis Fournier. Sketches of trees, groves,
streams and landscapes were made in any weather and wearing whatever
apparel needed – rubber boots, skiis, snowshoes or toboggan suit.
Eleanor was known as a free thinker and a free spirit, wearing divided
skirts well before they were the norm. Although fond of company, walked
alone and enjoyed the solitude for thinking and study time.

"Trees in Spring"12 x 8-1/8Oil on panelSigned
lower left, personal inscription lower right "To Mr. & Mrs.
Stearns In Memory of a Trip on the Crocus"

“Eleanor Douglas preached the gospel of simplicity and of the open road,
the life of the great outdoors. She was the true nature lover, and that
love found expression in paintings that will live…”.

Soon after
Fournier had arrived in East Aurora, NY in 1903 to work at Elbert
Hubbard’s famed Roycroft Arts & Crafts Campus, he decided to form a
local Paint and Varnish Club. The club was co-organized by Eleanor
Douglas and a select few artists met regularly at Eleanor’s School House
Studio. Though it seems the Club didn’t last very long, it was later
revived around 1917 by Merle James (American, 1890-1963), whose daughter
Betsy married the famous American artist Andrew Wyeth. James was the art
director of the Roycroft and designed for the FRA and other Roycroft
publications from 1917-1924. He then became the Advertising Manager and
Editor of the Rotogravure Department of the Buffalo Courier-Express.
More can be read about the East Aurora Paint and Varnish Club
(c.1904-c.1935) on its artist page on our website.

Eleanor was
well liked in her community and by her contemporaries, and her work was
respected among local art societies as well as national exhibitions.
Eleanor first exhibited with the Ontario Society of Artists and the
Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in Ontario, Canada, and later with the
Buffalo Society of Artists (BSA), Buffalo, NY. She was a member of the
BSA and also helped co-found the original East Aurora Paint and Varnish
Club (c.1904-c.1935) along with fellow Roycroft artist Alexis Jean
Fournier (American, 1865-1948). The Club met regularly at Eleanor’s
School House Studio and included such notable artists as Robert North
(American, 1882-1968), and Margaret Evans Price (American, 1888-1973).

Her last name was originally spelled ‘Douglass’ and it appears
that sometime just before or after the turn of the 20th century she
dropped the second ‘s’ from her name. All of her paintings bear the
signature ‘Douglas’. No official reason was ever given as to why she
dropped the second ‘s’, but some speculate that she did it when she
began to exhibit her work. In the late fall of 1914, Eleanor closed up
her School House Studio to spend the winter at her mother’s house in
Chicago, IL. On Saturday morning, November 14th, Eleanor suddenly died
at her mother’s home from heart failure. She is buried in Mt. Greenwood
Cemetery, Chicago, IL.

Forest Cheney, former curator of a large
New York gallery and admirer of Eleanor’s work once stated about her,
“The striking characteristics of Miss Douglas’s work consist of the
potency of its individuality, and her remarkable portraits of the silent
monarchs of the woods, whose voiceless stories few artists have been
able to relate, either by pen of the master stroke of the brush.”

“Her work shows a strong vivid realism that carries one back to the
Barbizon school, combined with an idealism which makes her canvases more
than a mere trapping of beautiful moods of nature and fixing them in
color.”